Shiki Fujin
by Tirielle
Summary: The seal was supposed to seal away the demon at the cost of his own soul. And that's what happened. Really. Does the details honestly matter that much?
1. Chapter 1

Minato Namikaze, fourth Hokage of the village hidden in the leaves, faced the nine-tailed with determination in his eyes. Unrolling a scroll that was the product of a frantic, sleepless night, he prepared himself to seal the fox away for eternity. His everlasting soul was, after all, a small payment for the safety of his village.

"Are you sure about this?" Gamabunta asked from below his feet.

"It's the only way," he told his friend.

The great toad's silence was his acknowledgement, and Minato started the sequence of seals that was the last original technique he would ever create.

_Snake-Boar-Ram-Rabbit-Dog-Rat-Bird-Horse-Snake-SEAL!_

Nothing seemed different, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought that he'd failed.

"Ahem," said a voice in front of him. A disembodied hand appeared, which then grabbed the air and pulled it back like the hood from a cloak. Oddly enough, a head became visible, and the hand then proceeded to pull at the air beneath it, revealing a person as it pulled away a shimmery silver cloak and folded it over one arm.

"Who—How—What are you doing here? I told everyone else to stay inside the village," Minato frowned.

"I don't think I was here for that bit," the stranger said, picking imaginary bits of lint off his clothes. "And as for why I'm here, well… You called for me."

"I didn't call for anyone. I don't need back-up for a suicide run."

"Well, technically, you called for Shinigami-kun, but he's on sick leave right now. Indigestion, or something. Ryuk-chan wanted to come, but he'd probably just point and laugh and be supremely unhelpful. So I came instead."

Minato looked the man—who looked younger than he did—and realized there were several things wrong with the situation. The man was standing on thin air as if it were water, which was odd but still possible. He had no armor or visible weapons or any sign of being a shinobi, other than a distinctly odd dress sense. Still possible. The world seemed to have gone quiet and still, and everything was frozen still except for him and the stranger. Curiously, he reached out to touch one of the sparks suspended in the air in front of him. It sizzled, and disappeared.

Less possible. Extremely less possible.

He examined the figure in front of him. Short, slight, civilian build. Wire-frame glasses, messy black hair, pale skin. He was wearing a long black duster, purposefully ripped jeans,button-up green shirt, and a bookbag with a black notebook peeking out. A silver pendant hung around his neck, shaped like a circle inside of a triangle and bisected by a vertical line. And his eyes were an eerie, slightly glowing green.

"You're…" Minato started.

"Potter-Black Harry, Master of Death, nice to meet you," he rattled off. He reached out a hand, and Minato shook it numbly.

"…not what I was expecting."

"I get that a lot," the Master of Death told him. "But if write a request for help in Celestial and send it to the forces of nature, you can't really complain about what you get back."

"I'm not complaining," Minato said. "Just… surprised."

The Master of Death nodded and gestured to the world around them. "Take your time. We literally have all the time in the world."

"Actually," Minato said after a moment, "I was wondering about that. I thought that this would be more of a frantic last-moment effort to seal away the soul of my enemy, instead of," he waved a hand at the tableau around them, "this."

The force of nature crossed his legs and sat down on the air. "Well, that's the execution part," he explained, ignoring Minato's wince at his choice of words. "Right now, we have to take care of the paperwork."

He rifled through the notebook from his bag before stopping near the center and pulling a page out. Digging out a quill and inkwell as well, he scribbled something on it before handing it to Minato.

"Fill that out," he ordered him.

Minato looked down at the form. It asked him for his name, payment—which the deity seemed to have already filled in as 'eternal everlasting soul', recipient of sealing, destination of sealing, and then a long section on insurance claims which asked about things like his species, patron god, and ownership of ancient artifacts.

He filled it out and gave it back. The Master of Death cast a critical eye over it, and frowned.

"Master of Death-sama? Is there a problem?" Minato asked.

"Just call me Harry. And, well, your soul is enough to seal away… a quarter of the Nine-tails into yourself, to damn to eternal purgatory, or half of it into a vessel on the mortal plane. I'm afraid that you don't have enough power to seal the whole thing, and the rest of it would be left to rampage over that village over there you seem to be protecting," Harry informed him.

Minato's eyes hardened in determination. "That's not good enough."

Harry raised an eyebrow. The world seemed to darken around them, the light and warmth seeping away into the silence and sending a chill down his spine. He was suddenly distinctly aware of the aura of _power_ that the man gave off, dark and tremendous and barely restrained. The man-who-was-more-than-a-man became imposing instead of friendly, seeming to tower over him without moving from his cross-legged seat. His eyes became brighter and sharper, gleaming like unfeeling emeralds in the night.

"Are you challenging me?" he asked. "Me, the Master of Death, ender of civilizations and worlds? Ruler of the boundaries between this life and the next?"

"Yes," said Minato.

The ender of civilizations and worlds smiled, and warmth returned to the world. "Good answer, kid. You've got guts, and I like that. So, do you have any apples?"

He blinked, confused at the subject change. "Ap—well, actually, I do. Why?"

Harry pulled out another page and gave it to him. It was identical to the first, but the line for payment simply contained the word, 'apples'.

"Really?" he asked, not realizing that he was speaking out loud.

"You'll understand if you ever become a shinigami," Harry said. "Mortal apples, when you're dead, are the most delicious things in existence, but it's not like I can just go grocery shopping when everyone I touch dies within the hour. They're just so juicy, and crunchy, and…" he trailed off, a dazed expression on his face.

When Minato handed the form back along with the apple that Kushina had given him the night before while insisting he eat something, Harry grabbed the apple first, biting into it with a small groan of delight.

"Alright," he said between bites, "So that's either sealing the whole demon away in a vessel on the mortal plane, or half of it into yourself to rot in purgatory with you."

Minato felt a bit insulted that his soul was worth about the same as an apple, but wisely kept silent about it.

"Fair warning, though," the being continued, "There _aren't_ any vessels right now on the mortal plane that can contain the entirety of the Nine-tails. The most powerful one right now would be able to contain the Eight-tails, so about half the Nine-tails' power, and that's your newborn infant son. Now, I like you and everything, but payment has to be equal to services rendered—it's one of the rules Clow used to stabilize the multiverse—and I'm not paying the difference myself. Have anything else to trade?"

Minato thought. The safety of his village—and his family—depended on his answer, and the ability to find just a little bit more that the Master of Death would value.

"I'll do your paperwork," he offered finally. "If you seal half the demon into my son and half into me, I'll do your paperwork for the next decade."

The deity tossed the apple core into the air, and ate it on its way down. "I knew I liked you for a reason," he smiled. "Two decades, kid, and you have a deal."

[END]


	2. Chapter 2

[A/N] I really did mean for this to be a one-shot. Clearly, I was lying to myself.

* * *

Harry hummed to himself as he strode into his office. What was officially his office, at least—for the past few years, someone else had been working in it, doing all his paperwork. Some would call it a deal with the devil. Harry called it professional delegation.

"Hello, Mi-kun!"

The man at the desk didn't even look up, simply replying with a bored, "I thought I asked you not to call me that." His hand travelled back and forth over the paper in front of him a few more times before he set down the pen, tipping his chair back to look up at his visitor with cerulean blue eyes. "What can I do for you, boss?"

Harry pouted. "Are you saying that I can't visit my favourite secretary without wanting something?"

Said secretary sighed, running a hand through his golden hair. "I'm your only secretary, Harry. And the last time you came to see me, you tried to get me addicted to strawberries to win a bet with Kurosaki-taichou."

Harry waved a hand, which had the nice side effect of conjuring a plush armchair out of thin air. He flopped into it with a comfortable whomp. The man across the desk didn't bat an eye. Harry took a moment to mourn the lack of reaction. He missed the days when his employee was nervous around magic. All four of them.

"Details, details, Mi-kun. All that paperwork is making you focus too much on them. You should take a break, sometime. I did tell you that you had weekends off."

Mi-kun—or rather, Namikaze Minato—gave him a pointed look. "You don't even have days in this place, let alone weeks or weekends. The only way I can keep track of time is by that," he said, gesturing at an hourglass in the corner, "and that's set for 20 years."

The hourglass was the sign of his contract with Harry. It was tall, thin, and appeared to be filled with tiny particles of light instead of sand, which swirled gently in their respective halves. The top was much brighter than the bottom—Minato guessed that a little over a quarter of his time doing the Mater of Death's paperwork was over.

"…Naruto must be almost six by now," he mused.

Harry's teasing expression softened into a genuine, if contrite, smile. "I'd let you visit, but even I can't bend the laws of the universe that much. If your chain of fate is broken, the contract would be too."

"I know," Minato told him with a wry smile, absent-mindedly toying with the long chain that connected his chest with the hourglass.

A contemplative look crossed Harry's face. While it was true that he rarely visited Mi-kun, he had grown rather fond of him. After all, the man was doing _all_ of his paperwork, leaving Harry free to traipse the multiverse. Indentured servant or no, he considered the Fourth Hokage a friend. And he was good company when he wasn't in workaholic mode.

He decided. "I can't let you visit him, but…" Blue eyes snapped towards him, paying much more attention than they were before. "I might be able to deliver something. Not a card—dead people don't write cards—but I can probably deliver a birthday present."

A brilliantly hopeful look rose in Minato's eyes. "Are you sure? I don't want to trouble you. It's not in our contract or anything."

"Consider it five years' worth of Christmas and birthday bonuses," Harry told him.

Minato thought for a moment. Even the Hokage got Christmas bonuses, although he had to give them to himself. "Alright," he said. "I can agree to that. Now, for the present, here's what I would like you to do…"

* * *

Harry snickered loudly as another ANBU ran past him. There was no chance of Harry being noticed, of course—he'd hidden himself just a little bit diagonal from the fabric of this particular reality. Close enough to see, but not close enough to be seen. Even if there wasn't anything the mortals could really do to him, the village security forces could make it annoying if he ever had to come back.

This particular ANBU appeared mostly normal. Until he ran into a beam of sunlight, that is. The moment he stepped out of the shadows, his uniform burst into a dazzling display of sparkles. But really, it could be worse. He'd seen one six-foot-tall ninja running around in a pink uniform edged with ivory lace and ribbons.

Whoever had done this deserved a prize. His prankster genes, inherited from his father and both his godfathers, approved. And he had an interesting feeling that he knew who was behind it.

Fortunately, unlike the ANBU racing around the village, Harry could cheat to find the culprit. He closed his eyes to concentrate, and let his focus fade from the world around him. Most of what he could sense was chakra, but there was a faint hint of magic, foreign to its surroundings. The magic was his own, used to reinforce the seal which Mi-kun had sold his soul for.

Tucking a wrapped package into his pocket, he followed the magic to the top of the Hokage monument, walking on the air as easily as if it were solid ground. The trail led him to the edge of the Fourth Hokage's hair, and he took a moment to amuse himself with the fact that he was standing on his friend's head. Not a very long moment, though, because the person that he was looking for was sitting right in front of him. Harry shifted entirely into reality and hit the dirt with a soft thud.

The child looked around at the noise, and Harry took a good look at him. Young as he was, the resemblance was unmistakable—the exact same shade of blue stared out at him from beneath a familiar mop of yellow hair. There was no mistaking that this was Minato's child, even if he looked closer to four years old than six.

"Hi there!" he greeted, taking a step forward. The boy immediately flinched back. Harry frowned inwardly, taking care to keep a smile pasted on his face. On a second glance, the boy wasn't just short for his age—he was scrawny and dirty. There were no scars or bruises from any abuse, thank Merlin, but someone definitely wasn't taking care of him properly.

Harry plunked down onto the dirt, noticing how a bit of the child's wariness dissipated now that they were the same height and Harry didn't seem to be coming any closer. "My name is Potter Harry," he told the kid. "Are you Uzumaki Naruto?"

He gave a blinding grin as he introduced himself. "Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konohagakure! The best ninja to have ever walked the earth! " He noticed the amusement in Harry's eyes and scowled. "What, you don't think I can do it? Don't laugh at me! I'm going to be the best ninja the village has ever seen, and then they'll all—"

Harry cut him off with a shake of his head. "I wasn't laughing at you, Naruto-kun. It's a good dream. You just reminded me of your father."

Naruto stared. "You knew my dad?" he asked, heartbreakingly hopeful.

He nodded. "Nobody ever told you about him?"

Naruto looked at the ground. "Nobody's even told me who he is. All I know is that he died in the Kyuubi attack. Hokage-jiji knows, but he won't tell me. He says it's too dangerous now, and he'll tell me when I'm older." He scowled at the dirt, showing what he thought of _that_ opinion.

Recalling Shinigami-kun's complaints about exactly how much paperwork his employee had created while alive, Harry had to agree with the Hokage. Some things just weren't safe for an almost-six year old to know.

Naruto scowled even more when he told him.

"But even if I can't tell you who he i—was," he continued, reminding himself to use past-tense, "I can tell you what kind of person he was."

Naruto brightened at this, and shyly gestured at the empty space beside him. Moving closer so that they were both dangling their legs over the edge of the monument, Harry told Naruto about his father and watched hero worship blossom in his eyes.

* * *

It was almost sunset when the ANBU found them. Harry wasn't quite sure if this was a sign of Naruto's competence or the village's utter failure. They'd spent the time talking about Minato—although he was never actually named—and then swapping prank ideas. The kid was _devious_.

The ninja that found them was female, judging by the long hair and slender shape, but he wasn't quite sure—it might've been a Hyuuga. She had a pair of fluffy white cat ears, a matching tail with a bell on the end, and tiny paw prints covering her uniform.

"You…" she started, mask facing Naruto and hands twitching as if they had the unbearable urge to strangle someone.

Naruto blinked innocently at her with wide blue eyes. "Me?"

"You little… you're coming with me to the Hokage tower"

"Okay!" said Naruto cheerfully. "I haven't seen him in _ages_. Do you think he'll take me out for ramen?"

The ANBU grabbed onto the back of his orange jumpsuit. "Hokage-sama doesn't have enough time to take brats like you out for ramen," she sternly informed him.

Naruto shrieked. "NO TIME FOR RAMEN!?"

Harry and the ANBU both winced.

"But that's awful!" Naruto continued. "Ramen is the food of the gods, dattebayo! Hey, ANBU-san, can we go get ramen?" He ignored the ninja's firm denial. "We can bring some over to Hokage-jiji, 'cause he doesn't have time to do it himself. Hey, what's your favourite type of ramen?"

He grabbed the ANBU's hand (which had a paw print on its glove) and started dragging her off towards the tower, talking a mile a minute about _ramen_ of all things. ("I bet you'll like chicken ramen, ANBU-san, Ayame-nee-san says that it's low soda-bum, and girls love that!") For a moment, the ANBU turned a pleading glance—or at least, what Harry was certain would be a pleading glance if she wasn't wearing a mask—towards him. Seeing her turn, Naruto turned around as well, walking a few paces backwards as he waved enthusiastically.

"SAYONARA HARRY-SAN!" Naruto called.

Harry grinned. "See you later, kid." As they disappeared, Harry realized that he actually meant it.

* * *

When he returned to his office, Minato was focusing intensely at a sheet of paperwork. Harry waited for him to finish, before he realized that his eyes were not moving at all. Rather, the man was staring at a single spot, his writing hand fidgeting restlessly with a pen.

Harry cleared his throat loudly. The reaction was instantaneous—Minato jumped out of his chair, pressing his back against the wall, and threw the pen at the doorway, enhancing it with wind chakra. Harry just snickered, ducking under the projectile and watching it embed itself in the hallway behind him.

"BOSS!" Minato greeted, not giving any consideration to the fact that he just attempted to murder said boss. "Did you find him? How is he? Did he like the present? Is he happy? Healthy? Well-fed? Cute? Does he look like me?"

Right. The present. One of Harry's hands drifted towards his coat pocket, where he could feel the slight, previously forgotten weight of the parcel. "Yes, I found him. I didn't give him the present, though—I thought I'd wait and surprise him on his actual birthday. Wouldn't that be nicer? It's only September in that world, and you came to work for me when he was born, sometime in October. It's not that much time, and it would make it more special."

Minato looked at him suspiciously. Harry was quite sure that Minato suspected he had actually just forgotten, but there was no way for the ex-Hokage to prove it. "Fine," the man acquiesced. "October 10th. You got it?"

Harry nodded. "He seems like a happy kid," he added, answering the other questions. "Really cheerful. He has your hair and eyes, and your weirdo ears."

Minato gave a mild glare at the ear comment, but he couldn't disguise the paternal pride in his expression. It was ridiculously sappy.

"And he has a really weird ramen addiction. And a pranking one too."

Minato gave an exasperated smile. "Really? I guess it can't be helped. It's in his genetics, after all. He gets the ramen from both of us—probably wants to eat it every meal or something—but the whole pranking thing is definitely from his mother."

"And…" Harry hesitated. The child looked like he was being neglected. But what good would it do to tell Mi-kun that little tidbit, chained to a desk as he was? And he might not really be neglected—the malnutrition could come from a lack of vegetables and overabundance of ramen, which was more a matter of ignorance than neglect. He might just be small for his age, or a particularly fussy eater. And it was all circumstantial—there were no bruises or any other telling injuries. He would've been able to sense them.

"And?" Minato asked, curious.

He'd check later, on the kid's birthday. If it was really that bad, he could do something about it. "…And you wouldn't believe what he did to the ANBU when I was there. Hey, do you know any ANBU with long purple hair? At least, I think it was purple. You see, it was covered in this really thick orange goo, and it smelled like…"

* * *

Before long, it was October, and it was time for Harry to give Naruto his birthday present. He dressed himself up for the occasion, donning a set of Eastern-influenced dress robes in emerald and black that was from his original world and thus older than several civilizations. He also pulled on a long pair of black gloves. Naruto, thanks to the bit of Harry's magic in the seal, was immune to the whole Master-of-Death-kills-whoever-he-touches thing, but he doubted the kid would appreciate it if he killed a birthday guest by mistake.

Descending to Konohagakure, he smiled at what he found. It seemed that the village was in full-out festival mode. Adults were talking and shouting and dancing, with a tell-tale sway in their steps that Harry knew meant they'd been drinking. Groups of teenagers gossiped eagerly, drifting between stalls and getting turned away from bars. Children scampered all over the place, under the watchful eye of their parents and babysitters.

It was, Harry mused as he walked through the streets, a good time for a child to have his birthday. He wasn't sure what they were celebrating, though—in all his prior travels in the Elemental Nations, he'd never encountered a festival on October the tenth. On the other hand, his prior travels were neither extensive nor recent…

He paused at a puppeteer's stand. A miniature stage had been erected, with a small curtain at the top to hide the man manipulating the puppets. The man seemed to be in the middle of a performance, judging by the clump of fascinated children. Harry raised an eyebrow when he recognized the puppets—a small human with a shock of yellow yarn for hair, a much larger red toad with a pipe and a scar over one eye, and an equally large crimson fox with nine tails.

So that's what they were celebrating, Harry realized. Looking around, he could see the occasional mourner—although not many, because the Nine-tails had been stopped before it reached the village and he was in the civilian sector. The mourners would be those who had family outside the village, and who knew the shinobi who went out to try to delay the fox.

He turned a corner and whistled under his breath, impressed in spite of himself and a bit disturbed. Towering over a marketplace was a gigantic effigy of the Nine-tailed Fox, built out of wood and surrounded by a small mountain of lit kindling. It was burning slowly—probably designed to last all night. He twitched a finger to enhance the flow of magic to his cooling charms. Konoha was much more tropical than England ever was, and the added heat from the massive fire was quite uncomfortable.

The sight of a crowded stall selling accessories ("Sasuke, proper Uchiha do _not_ wear goggles") reminded him of the reason he was in the village in the first place. One hand drifted into his pocket to fidget with the gift as he followed the faint trace of foreignness once more, letting it lead him through the bustling festival. He wouldn't have been surprised to find the child at a food stand, especially the one he passed that advertised a ramen eating contest. With the boy's obsession, that should have drawn him like a moth to a flame.

Instead, the trace led him to the outskirts of the bright festivities, then past them. The further he walked, the more cracks appeared in the buildings and pavement; the more chips appeared in the paint. There was a curious lack of people, too, at least until he encountered an angry drunken crowd surrounded a decrepit apartment building.

Harry frowned. His magic was telling him that Naruto was in that building.

He ducked behind a building and phased out of reality, just enough so that he could make his way intangibly through the crowd. He shivered as he walked through a balding man in his forties—passing through people was not unlike passing through ghosts in his adolescence, many years ago. Reaching the door, he realized why the crowd had not pushed its way inside. Guarding the door was an ANBU, with his arms crossed, back straight, and feet firmly planted a shoulder width apart. His mask, painted with bold brush strokes to resemble a tiger, stared out at those surrounding the building. All in all, he presented a clear, silent message: _You will not pass._

Harry turned his body sideways to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of going through someone else, and walked inside.

Inside the apartment building were more ANBU, although these had taken basic lengths to hide themselves. Some were hidden behind the doorways of empty apartments, and at least one was stationed inside each stairwell entrance. They crouched, waiting and watching, and Harry ignored them all.

When he got to the kid's floor, he could immediately tell which apartment belonged to him. Apart from several scorch marks on the door and swear words scratched into its fresh coat of paint, there was an ANBU standing guardedly on either side of it. Feeling a bit mischievous, Harry walked over so that he was standing right in front of Naruto's apartment.

He made himself visible, and knocked politely.

A few things happened at once. The ANBU on his left jumped and swore in a way that told Harry he was a rookie. The ANBU on his left flickered behind him and pulled his unresisting arms behind his back, simultaneously bringing a blade to rest a scant half-inch from his throat. And a powerful chakra presence flared protectively inside the apartment, making Harry wonder how he missed the fact that the _Hokage_, or at least someone as powerful as him, was there.

"Hello!" Harry called brightly through the door. "I'm looking for Uzumaki Naruto-kun. Is this the right apartment?" He ignored the way that speaking brought the blade—a standard issue katana, by the looks of it—closer to his neck. It wasn't like he could _die_.

There was silence, then the slow rattle of a lock being opened. And then what sounded like a few deadbolts, too. When the last clatter of metal faded away, the door swung open. Standing in the doorway was an old man with a pointed goatee and liver spots on his face. His hair was receding and his face was lined with wrinkles, but his eyes shone with keen intelligence. More notably, he was radiating the intensely protective chakra that he had noticed before.

Harry smiled at the third and current Hokage of Konoha. "Is Naruto-kun here?"

The man smiled back, and Harry was reminded of Dumbledore's grandfatherly airs. It was decidedly suspicious. "I might know where you could find him. Why are you looking for him?"

Harry smiled his best angelic smile. "I have a present for him, of course. After all, it's his birthday today. But I've been rude—I haven't introduced myself. My name is Potter Harry. Naruto-kun's met me before. "

He winked at the suspicious tuft of blonde hair that was sticking out from behind a couch. It disappeared with a tiny squeak.

"So you're the mysterious Harry-san," said the Hokage, his suspicions remaining unsatisfied. If anything, they had increased. Harry suspected that Naruto had told the man everything about their encounter, and unlike Naruto, the Hokage actually realized how strange it was. "Naruto has told me quite a bit about you, so it is a pleasure to actually meet you. My name is Saturobi Hiruzen, and as I am sure you have noticed, yes, this is Naruto's apartment. Come in and eat with us."

However friendly the tone, it was not a request. The ANBU released his arms and shoved him gently through the door, the door closing with a subtle click behind him. Harry looked around at the apartment. It was quite bare, with a set of simple furniture taking up the middle of the room and a kitchenette against the wall. Two closed doors sat against the opposite wall, hiding what Harry suspected were a bathroom and a bedroom. A target was nailed between them, with a few throwing knives embedded in it off-centre. The sole window had curtains drawn over it—Harry smiled when he realized they were printed to look like ramen noodles.

Speaking of ramen, he could definitely smell some. His attention was drawn to the coffee table in the middle of the room. Set in the centre was a board game. On either side of the game were steaming takeout bowls of ramen, and in a neat stack on the floor were at least ten more lidded bowls, all labelled with a different flavour. And beside the ramen bowls, still half-hidden behind the couch, was Naruto.

"Happy birthday Naruto-kun!" greeted Harry. "I did say I'd be seeing you again, didn't I? I have a present for you from your father."

Naruto gave a sort of... whooping strangled gasp of shocked happiness. It was a strange sound, but Harry understood the sentiment. It was louder version of how he felt when he got his invisibility cloak in his first year of Hogwarts. The child accepted the wrapped package reverently, his eyes bright with emotion. The Hokage, on the other hand, was looking at him with an expression of deep mistrust, and he was quite certain the ANBU hidden in the shadows was glaring at him. _Later,_ Harry mouthed at the Hokage while Naruto was distracted. The man nodded a terse agreement.

"Open it," Harry suggested, settling down on the couch. Naruto sat beside him and the Hokage cautiously settled himself in the armchair across the table. The boy set the package in his lap and unwrapped it with care atypical for a child his age, carefully removing the tape so that the paper wouldn't rip. Inside was a pair of wide-banded green goggles with white accents around the lenses. Naruto lifted them with wide eyes.

"They're so COOL!"

Considerately, Harry suppressed the urge to snicker and/or burst out laughing. Instead, he just reached out a hand to ruffle the six-year-old's hair. "Your father had a pair when he was your age," he explained. "He would make his father—your grandfather—take him cliff-diving all the time, and he got the goggles so that he could keep his eyes open the _entire_ time even if he couldn't chakra-shield them."

Naruto was practically bouncing with excitement. "Cliff-diving? What's that?"

"Exactly what it sounds like."

Naruto turned to the Hokage. "Jiji, can I go? Can I _please_? It sounds so cool, 'ttebayo!"

The Sandaime looked at him. "Can you swim yet, Naruto?"

"….no"

"You're only allowed to go cliff-diving if you know how to swim."

Naruto pouted. Harry, unable to resist, pulled out a camera and snapped a picture.

"Huh?" said Naruto, blinking away the spots in his vision left by the flash.

"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun," said Harry unconvincingly. "I just couldn't resist. You look so cute when you're pouting."

"I wasn't pouting. And I'm not cute!" sputtered Naruto. "Cute is for girls!"

"Aaah," nodded Harry sagely. "And girls have cooties. Isn't that right, Sarutobi-san?"

"Indeed," the Hokage agreed, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he stroked his goatee. "Dreadful things, those cooties."

Naruto just huffed at them. "Grown-ups are stupid," he informed them bluntly. "Can I have my ramen now?"

The Hokage chuckled and nodded. Harry simply watched in fascination as the boy practically _inhaled_ all the ramen except for the bowl sitting in front of the Sandaime. Somehow, the boy also managed to chatter about all the amazing pranks he'd done in the weeks since Harry had seen him last. Harry made a point of not looking directly at the child's mouth—the one glance he had risked had actually made him slightly nauseous. The Hokage did his best to look disapproving at the descriptions of the child's antics, but his eyes were twinkling and several times he'd been unable to completely suppress a snort.

Naruto finished with a loud belch and a contented sigh, putting down his chopsticks and sprawling himself over his couch.

"Full already?" Sarutobi teased. "After only fifteen bowls of ramen?"

"Nah," replied the child. "But I thought I should at least leave some for you and Harry-san. Ichiraku's is the best, Harry-san. You should try it."

"I'm not that hungry," Harry tried to say, pushing the bowl back towards Naruto. "You eat it. It's your birthday, after all."

A menacing glint entered Naruto's eyes. "Not hungry for ramen? Are you saying that you don't like ramen? Are you a _heretic?_"

Harry wondered where the six-year-old learned a word like heretic. "…On second thought, maybe you should leave room for desert. I saw a few wonderful looking stands down at the festival."

The child visibly deflated. "I can't go to the festival, Harry-san. If I go, people try to hurt me."

There it was. His proof. Harry had to concentrate to keep his magic leashed and his surroundings unbroken. He _hated_ child abuse. "Do they? Who tries to hurt you, Naruto-kun?" His voice was calm, and reassuring, and still sent a chill down the Hokage's spine.

"…Teuchi-san and Ayame-nee-san don't. And some of the other kids don't mind me too much."

Which meant that almost everyone else _did._ Harry glanced at the Hokage, and saw the suppressed rage and resignation in his face. The man truly did care for Naruto-kun, but he was probably tied down with politics and bureaucratic incompetency. As for the why, well… there was one very obvious reason that Harry could think of for a mob to form outside Naruto-kun's home during a festival that celebrated the Nine-tail's defeat. People _knew._

Harry reached out an arm to the child, and pulled him close into a half-hug. "I'll never hurt you, kid," he promised. "Your father would find a way to kill me if I did. And I doubt your Jiji would either. So just forget about them. They don't matter." Naruto stiffened at first, but then his hands rose up to tangle themselves into Harry's robes. Harry patted his head gently, and mouthed another message to the Hokage: _We need to talk._

The rest of the evening was spent in comfortable celebration. The Sandaime tried to enlist Harry to teach Naruto shogi—the game set out on the coffee table—but Harry didn't remember the exact rules and Naruto didn't quite have the patience for it. Instead, Naruto and Harry teamed up on one side against the Hokage, and narrated the game as if the shogi pieces were real warriors. Eventually the game board was abandoned altogether, and battle-lines were drawn in chalk on the floor.

After the Fire King's dramatic surrender speech to the great Ramen Army, Harry entertained the birthday boy with simple card tricks. Even if the boy wanted to grow up to be a ninja, he wasn't yet adept enough to see through the slight of hand (and sparse amounts of actual magic) behind the tricks. When he finally tired of that, the Hokage sent him off to bed, with a promise of a bed-time story after he brushed his teeth.

The room was quiet after Naruto left. After a long moment, the Hokage turned to Harry. "Who are you, really?"

Harry just shook his head. "A friend of his father's," he replied. "A better description would take too much time."

The Hokage must've given some sort of signal, because a heartbeat later he sensed a senbon flying towards his face. He didn't react to it—the Hokage wouldn't have his ANBU aim anywhere vital as long as Naruto was still so emotionally attached to him. Indeed, the needle sliced a line across the flesh of his cheek and did no further damage.

He didn't react to the pain, either.

The Hokage was still scrutinizing him when Naruto announced that his teeth were clean and he was in his pyjamas. Tearing himself away from the mystery of Potter Harry, he went to wish his charge good night.

* * *

When Hiruzen returned to the main room of the apartment, he was disappointed but unsurprised to find it empty. If he had dropped as many hints as Potter did on Potter's home ground, and while befriending one of Potter's favourite people, he would've made himself as scarce as possible too.

He indicated to Cat that he was leaving, and that two thirds of the ANBU should remain on guard, just in case, for the rest of the night. Cat nodded—she'd gone through this routine before. She sent her trainee to tell the rest of the guard platoon, while she herself remained at her post outside Naruto's door. The Hokage's guard assembled on the roof before leaving the building with leaps and body flickers. The idea was to keep the civilians from realizing that the guard roster had been cut—prior years had proven that if the mob believed they had a numbers advantage, it would be very hard to stop them with nonlethal force.

As he raced across the rooftops with his guard, he smiled. Naruto had had a good birthday. That fact alone was worth the headache he was getting from Potter.

He arrived at the Hokage tower and, seeing nobody around except for the ANBU, scaled the wall and entered his office through the window. He scolded all his ninja for it on principle, but the fact was that entering through the window was _so_ much more convenient than navigating the inside of the tower. A quick chakra pulse confirmed that the only ones inside the room were the guard ANBU and a depressingly large stack of paperwork.

He settled into his chair and pulled the first sheet over with a sigh.

"I find it helps to delegate," a voice said in front of him. "That's how I met Mi-kun."

Hiruzen looked up slowly, hiding his surprise. Where there had previously been empty space, there was now a rather familiar man. His ANBU had pinned his arms behind his back and one was holding a blade to the man's throat. Again. And once more, the man seemed perfectly at ease with the situation. This time, however, Hiruzen made no motion for the man's release.

"Mi-kun?" asked Hiruzen, already suspecting the answer.

"Namikaze Minato-kun to you, I suspect. But most people just call him the Yondaime Hokage. Rather lazy of them, don't you think?" Potter rolled his eyes.

"Perhaps," Hiruzen replied noncommittally. How on _earth_ had the man snuck into his office?

"I mean, I don't think Naruto-kun even _knows_ the Yondaime's real name. I could go up to him and say, 'Your father's name was Namikaze Minato,' and he would just look confused. The name would mean absolutely noth—"

"How_,_" he interrupted with an icy voice, all traces of grandfatherly warmth leeched away, "How _exactly_ do you know that fact?"

Potter flashed a cheeky smile. "Why, Mi-kun told me, of course. Sent me with the kid's birthday present and everything, remember?"

There was not a single hint of a lie in the man's body, but that didn't mean that he was telling the truth. "How did you meet Minato-san?" he asked, subtly hand-signalling for one of his men to bring him Yamanaka Inoichi. Discretely. Protocol C-12 for unknown individuals. "He never mentioned you. I would've remembered your name—it's rather foreign."

"Probably because our meeting wasn't terribly interesting, Sarutobi-san." And that was another strange thing—Potter refused to use his title. He passed it off as ignorance before, but they were standing inside his office now and the man was being restrained by his personal guards. "I helped him with something. To pay me back, he agreed to do about twenty years' worth of paperwork." A shrug. "Twenty years is an awful lot of paperwork, so I said I'd do him a favour for free. And here I am."

"What kind of help is worth twenty years of paperwork?" He really did want to know. Like all the other Hokages, Minato had detested paperwork (although he had been rather good at it). For him to agree to that, the task must've been immense.

"A seal," Potter replied. Hiruzen waited, hoping that he would elaborate. He didn't. There was a minute or so of tense silence, and then Potter said, "Would you please stop that? It's not going to work, and it's rude."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow. He was the Hokage. He wasn't rude, he was _intimidating._

"Not you," Potter said with another eye roll. "The mind reader in the corner." He turned his head. "You're about several hundred years too young to break into my mind," he informed the corner. "If you want to know something, just ask. I've been perfectly truthful this entire time—I try not to lie to people like you." He turned so he was facing Hiruzen once more. "The answer to the question that you're trying not to ask is yes, by the way. It's _that_ seal."

Hiruzen narrowed his eyes. "Who are you, really?" he asked for the second time that night.

Potter's expression brightened. Somehow, the man managed to snap his fingers while wearing gloves. The ANBU holding him tensed, and Potter freed his arms, meeting no resistance from the otherwise frozen men. He delicately took the tanto at his neck by the blade and pushed it away, causing Hiruzen to run a thumb gently over a kunai blade in preparation for a summoning. The man rummaged in his pockets for a moment before procuring a small purple ball with a golden misshaped zigzag on it, which he threw onto the ground at his feet.

The ball burst into a small explosion of smoke, green glitter dust, and loud brassy fanfare. "I," Potter announced, "am the great Potter Harry, magician extraordinaire! I like distractions and apples, I dislike boredom and paperwork, my hobby is travelling, and my dream for the future is retirement, preferably on a nice sandy beach somewhere." He gave a theatrically flourishing bow. "Nice to meet you."

Hiruzen sensed a deep, self-loathing shame radiating from his immobile ANBU. Personally, he had the distinct feeling that the universe was laughing at him.

After a moment, Potter snapped his fingers again, making a plush armchair appear out of nowhere. "Tough crowd," he sighed as he relaxed into it. "Fine. Go ahead and interrogate me. Professor X in the corner should at least be able to tell if I'm lying."

Deciding that he no longer had patience for the man, Hiruzen was blunt. "What do you want with Naruto?"

"No more than you, I suspect," the man told him. "His happiness, general well-being, and a long lifespan. The difference between us is how much power I have to achieve those things. You have the distinct look of someone drowning in other's politics and stupidity. I, luckily for you all, have no such obligations whatsoever."

"But why?" he wanted to know. "Why go to such lengths for a child you met barely a month ago? What do you _want?_"

Potter glared. "I _want_ what I _told_ you I want. Mi-kun's my friend, and I take care of my friends, and if that means babysitting his kid until he won't get _abused by his village,_ then I'll do it!" His scowl subsided a bit. "You've done all you can. I get it. But let me help. Naruto-kun deserves better, even if the villagers don't know how to appreciate his sacrifice." And then quieter still, under his breath, "I _hate_ child abuse."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow at that. Potter gave him a look that said that he considered the matter closed.

"I swear on my blood that I mean the child no harm, Sarutobi-san," the man said seriously, pulling off a glove and biting his thumb hard enough to draw blood. "So mote it be." A strange pressure filled the air for a moment, as if judging the oath, then disappeared as if nothing had happened. The blood was gone, and Potter slipped his glove back on.

Somehow, Hiruzen knew that the oath was binding. "Not the village?" he asked cautiously.

Potter snorted. "I want to go back to that mob around Naruto-kun's apartment and beat them bloody. So no, not your village. Rather not have my blood boiling in my veins for a lie, thank you very much."

He supposed that was all the assurance he was going to get. Good enough, for now—hopefully, given time, the man would form emotional attachments, ensuring his loyalty. What was more interesting was that thing about his blood boiling in his veins. He called himself a magician…did that have something to do with it? A kinjutsu, perhaps, or maybe something genetic, but he would've heard of an ability this powerful. After all, his ANBU were still standing there, frozen—

"Oh, no," Potter said, eyes wide. "They call you the _Professor,_ don't they? You've got that _look_."

He blinked, summoning his best senile-grandfather confusion face. "What look?"

"The _research_ look. No. I'm not going to—isn't there some sort of paperwork you need to do if I'm going to move into the village? I'll just move into his building, the thing looks abandoned anyways. Come on, seriously, I'm not that interesting at all!"

Hiruzen looked pointedly at the armchair, the frozen ANBU, and the green sparkles left on the floor. Potter looked at him with what was possibly the most disturbing set of puppy-dog-eyes he'd ever seen.

"Oh, fine," he huffed, pulling an immigration form from the endless wastes his assistants called filing cabinets. "Help me fill this out."

[END]


End file.
